LOUISIANA Police: 4 dead after shootings, 3 hurt

Associated Press

LOCKPORT, LA.

A nurse embroiled in a custody fight with his ex-wife killed his current wife before shooting his former in-laws and his onetime boss in a rampage that spanned two parishes in Louisiana, leaving three people dead and three wounded. He then fatally shot himself in the head, authorities said.

All three survivors remained hospitalized Friday, two in critical condition, Brennan Matherne, a spokesman for the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office, said. He said deputies are investigating.

Preliminary evidence shows that Ben Freeman, 38, first killed his wife, Denise Taylor Freeman, 43, before he went on a rampage and shot the others Thursday, Maj. Malcolm Wolfe wrote in an email.

Denise Freeman’s body was found in a bathtub, and an autopsy showed that she suffocated and drowned, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said Friday.

Ben Freeman then attacked his former in-laws with a shotgun in Lafourche Parish about 45 miles southwest of New Orleans, wounding parish Councilman Louis Phillip Gouaux and Gouaux’s daughter Andrea, Matherne said. Louis Gouaux was shot in the neck, while Andrea Gouaux suffered spinal damage, the sheriff’s office said. Both were in critical, but stable, condition after surgery Friday, Matherne said. Gouaux’s wife, Susan, was dead when deputies arrived, he said.

About 20 minutes after the first shootings, Freeman arrived at the home of Milton Bourgeois, CEO of Ochsner St. Anne General Hospital in nearby Raceland. Bourgeois was shot and killed at close range; his wife, Ann, was shot in the leg and was in stable condition at a hospital, Matherne said.

Bourgeois had been CEO of the hospital in Raceland since 1988, a spokeswoman said.

Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said Freeman worked at the hospital as a registered nurse until 2011, when he was fired. He said police had been called there previously after Freeman damaged a room. Freeman told officers he would seek mental help, Webre said. On Friday, Ochsner officials said Freeman had resigned voluntarily.

Gouaux called 911 about 6:40 p.m. Thursday from his home in Lockport, telling dispatchers he had been shot in the throat, The Courier newspaper in Houma reported. Freeman was divorced from Gouaux’s daughter Jeanne, whom he married in 1997.

Jeanne Gouaux — also a nurse — had filed several protective orders against Freeman, who had pleaded guilty to harassment charges and was allowed only supervised visits with their four children, Webre said. The last protective order expired less than a month ago, he said.

On Nov. 27, Ben Freeman was issued a citation for simple battery domestic violence against Denise Freeman, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. A court date had been scheduled for Jan. 16, 2014.